is an emotion that ever crosses your mind, regardless of the circumstance.'
He laughed, dropped a brief kiss onto her lips for the first time, and said, 'Well, one must at least appear to make the effort.' And then, as if realizing how good her mouth tasted, he kissed her again. Hard and rough were his kisses, and Victoria, as though released from some sort of restriction, kissed him back.
This was nothing like Phillip. In the back of her mind it saddened her, because their passion had been true, without the underlying brutality of the one she shared with Sebastian.
When he moved, releasing her wrists and allowing her hands to delve into his loose curls, she shifted her hips to keep from sliding off the seat, and her foot landed, unbalanced, on the round walking stick. Sebastian pressed his weight into her, as if to implant her into the bench, and matched his hips to hers. A kind of burning tingling between her legs surprised her, and she pushed up closer, wanting more, feeling the hard ridge of him through their clothing.
Sebastian moved again, and suddenly Victoria felt cool fresh air splay over her breasts. She gasped in surprise and her first instinct was to struggle away, but when he laughed over her skin and closed his lips over one of her nipples, she fell back against the seat.
Good heavens… she'd had no idea!
He tugged and sucked, and she pulled him closer, and even when his hands whisked impatiently at her split skirt, niching each half up to the top of her hips, she didn't push him away. There was freedom in knowing she could at any moment.
And for the moment, she was going to indulge in whatever this was. She needed it.
Sebastian had known she needed it.
When his hands slid to the tops of her thighs she pressed them together as much as she could, but one of his legs was trapped between them. He chuckled against the underside of her breast and looked up with gleaming golden eyes half hidden by the jut of his brow and the tips of curls falling over his forehead with the rhythm of the carriage movement. 'Are you still an innocent, my dear?'
'In some ways,' she replied with more honesty than she should have been able to at that moment.
He withdrew his hands from her skirt and moved to her waist, pulling the waistband down and baring her cotton shift to the bare flashes of street lamps and moonlight. He gave a soft, low sigh when he found what he wanted.
Both hands cupped around the slight swell of her belly and slid together until his fingers touched her
The faint brush of lips over her skin made her want to jerk and twist away—and press up into his mouth for more.
But then suddenly, like a dousing of cold water, she realized that the back of her neck was cool. Victoria stilled, listening. Yes, it was.
Sebastian stopped as though he too had noticed a change in the air, just as the carriage lurched to a halt.
'Vampires,' Victoria said, pushing him away and her skirts down. She pulled her bodice back up over her breasts and felt the iciness at the back of her neck with an unusual portent. Checking to make sure her stakes hadn't become dislodged during this last interval with Sebastian, she stood, shook out her skirts, and reached for the handle of the door.
The night was uncomfortably silent.
Sebastian reached out just as she would have turned the handle. His fingers closed over her wrist. 'Be careful, Victoria.'
She looked down at him. 'I am a Venator.' And she opened the door.
Standing in the gray street stood an Imperial and three Guardian vampires. They ringed the door side of the carriage. She understood: This was not a random attack; they were waiting for her.
An ugly yet unsurprising thought snapped into her mind. She turned back to Sebastian, closed the door and barred it. 'Did you bring me to them?'
His expression was unreadable. 'Why would I have saved your life by telling you about the Book of Antwartha, then do such a thing?'
A loud thud against the carriage door caused the vehicle to lurch to one side, then rock back into place. Victoria reached for the walking stick at the bottom of the carriage and, resting its metal tip at the edge of the seat, slammed her foot down on it. The end broke off, leaving a lethally jagged end and turning it into a stake that could be used to combat a sword like the ones the Imperials carried.
Her hands were damp, her heart racing faster than usual. She'd never fought an Imperial. Nor taken on three Guardians alone.
'Venator! Show yourself!'
She was no coward, but she knew the odds were completely against her.
One of the windows shattered, spraying glass over Sebastian's black wool coat draped over the seat. He hissed angrily and gathered it up, sending the glass tinkling to the floor. Yet he said nothing to Victoria.
A leering vampire face showed in the broken window, reaching in to scrabble his hand around to find the door latch. Victoria reacted, shoving the stake through and miraculously catching him in the chest.
But she couldn't stay in here forever. They weren't going anywhere, and Sebastian didn't appear to be promising any help.
Victoria leaned out of the jagged window and said, 'Who calls 'Venator'?'
'I do.' The Imperial vampire stepped toward the carriage. It was a greasy-haired woman, and her eyes were the red-violet hue of her status. She carried a sword, as had the ones Max had battled, and she wore trousers—slim, leg-hugging trousers that afforded greater movement than the ones Victoria wore.
'What do you want?'
'I have come to bring you to my mistress. She wishes to meet the newest Venator.'
Victoria dodged back in as one of the Guardians lunged toward the carriage in a vain attempt to catch her and pull her out. 'Please give Lilith my regrets, but I receive callers only on Tuesdays and Wednesdays between the afternoon hours of two and half past three. Unfortunately, we do not serve her favorite beverage.'
She reached out and grabbed at the vampire who'd just missed closing his hand around her. Her fingers gripped his jacket, trying to pull him into the coach. If she could just… get… them… one by one…
He slipped free of her grasp and thudded to the ground, and suddenly what had appeared to be a stalemate took a turn for the worse. The remaining three vampires moved toward the carriage as though flying, and slammed into it with the entire force of their power.
The carriage rose up high on one side, held for a moment in midair, then slammed onto its other side.
Victoria and Sebastian landed in a heap on the far windows, and in the furor, a slim pale arm reached in from what was now the top and had been merely a broken window, fumbling around for the door catch.
Victoria scrambled to her feet, climbing on the vertical seats. She ignored the pain in her head and stepped over Sebastian, who lay in a heap on the floor.
The door opened before Victoria could prevent it, but she was ready with her stake and stabbed out at the torso that came through the entrance. With a grunt of triumph she drove it into the body, and blood spurted out.
And then she realized, as it was flung away, that one of the vampires had used what had been Sebastian's driver as a human shield.
But that was her last thought, for suddenly everything went dark and close as something heavy was thrown over her. Victoria struggled, but whatever was holding the stifling cloth down over her person was strong and unmoving.
She couldn't breathe, couldn't take in any more lungfuls of oxygen that weren't laden with lint or dusty or stale or tight… too tight. She struggled against that tightness and tried to pull in more air… and finally lost the battle.
The blackness became reality.
